The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z

By Tamar Adler and Caitlin Winner

* A James Beard Award Nominee *

* A National Bestseller * Named a Best Book of the Year by Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Wired, Smithsonian, Publishers Weekly, and more *

Award-winning author Tamar Adler’s inspiring, money-saving, environmentally responsible, A-to-Z collection of simple recipes that utilize all leftovers—perfect for solo meals or for feeding the whole family.

Food waste is a serious issue—nearly forty percent of the food we buy gets tossed out. Most of us look around the kitchen and struggle to use everything we buy, and when it comes to leftovers we’re stuck. Tamar Adler can help—her area of culinary expertise is finding delicious destinies for leftovers. Whether it’s extra potatoes or meat, citrus peels or cold rice, a few final olives in a jar or the end of a piece of cheese, she has an appetizing solution.

The Everlasting Meal Cookbook offers more than 1,500 easy and creative ideas for nearly every kind of leftover. Now you can easily transform a leftover burrito into a lunch of fried rice, or stale breakfast donuts into bread pudding. These inspiring and tasty recipes don’t require any precise measurements, making this cookbook a go-to resource for when your kitchen seems full of meal endings with no clear meal beginnings. From applesauce to truffles, potato chip crumbs to cabbage—this comprehensive guide makes it easy to find a use for all everything.

Sensible, frugal, and consistently delicious, the recipes in The Everlasting Meal Cookbook allow you to prepare meals with economy and grace, making this a vital resource for every home cook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribner
• Release date: Mar 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781476799698

Tamar Adler

Tamar Adler is the James Beard and IACP Award–winning author of An Everlasting Meal; Something Old, Something New; and An Everlasting Meal Cookbook. She is a contributing editor at Vogue, has been a New York Times Magazine columnist, and the host of the Luminary podcast, Food Actually. She has cooked at Chez Panisse, and lives in Hudson, New York.

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Cover: The Everlasting Meal Cookbook, by Tamar Adler, illustrated by Caitlin Winner

The Everlasting Meal Cookbook

Leftovers A–Z

More than 1,500 recipes for cooking with economy and grace

Tamar Adler

PRAISE FOR TAMAR ADLER’S AN EVERLASTING MEAL

Beautifully intimate, approaching cooking as a narrative that begins not with a list of ingredients or a tutorial on cutting an onion, but with a way of thinking.… Tamar is one of the great writers I know—her prose is exquisitely crafted, beautiful and clear-eyed and open, in the thoughtful spirit of M. F. K. Fisher. This is a book to sink into and read deeply.

—Alice Waters, from the Foreword

Lessons so right and so eloquent that I think of them as homilies.

—Corby Kummer, The New York Times Book Review

Tamar Adler has written the best book on ‘cooking with economy and grace’ that I have read since M. F. K. Fisher.

—Michael Pollan

Reads less like a cookbook than like a recipe for a delicious life.

—New York magazine

A book about how to live a good life: take the long view, give to others, learn from everything you do, and always, always, always mindfully enjoy what you are doing and what you’ve done. The fact you’ll learn to be a great cook is just a bonus.

—Forbes.com

Adler proves herself an adept essayist in this discourse on instinctive home cooking. Though highly personal, it’s much less a food memoir than a kind of cooking tao.

—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Simultaneously meditative and practical, about how to appreciate and use what you have and how to prepare it appropriately with a minimum of fuss, space, equipment, or waste.

—The Austin Chronicle

Like having a cooking teacher whispering suggestions in your ear.… Mindfulness, I’m discovering through this terrific book, can be delicious.

—Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City

"Adler’s terrific book wisely presents itself as a series of how-tos with the suggestion that it’s not only possible to do all these things but, in fact, a pleasure. An Everlasting Meal provides the very best kind of lesson, that there is real joy to be had in eating, and eating well."

—Dan Barber, chef/co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns

PRAISE FOR TAMAR ADLER’S SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

Tamar Adler is a curious magpie, skillfully collecting culinary ephemera from across the ages and weaving them into an unimaginably beautiful nest. Step inside. You’ll find yourself comforted and inspired by the writing and the food, both equally sensible and elegant.

—Samin Nosrat, author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

A lovely and literary cookbook… handsome and witty and personal, full of glimpses into Adler’s life.

—Vogue.com

Adler is a peaceable cook, and a pragmatic one.… Her economizing ethos shines in her new book.

—The Washington Post

A personal, nostalgic journey inspiring the rediscovery of classics… as much about the writing as it is about the cooking.

—Jenny Rosenstrach, The New York Times Book Review

Adler has a curious intelligence and technical command to back up a thoughtful approach.… Any cook looking to exercise and enhance creativity will find in Adler a worthy muse.

—Booklist

Adler’s beautiful, reflective prose provides history and insight into each dish. Adler shows how nostalgic, old school dishes can taste current when remade with a modern sensibility.

—Publishers Weekly

Tamar Adler is more than a wonderful food writer—she is a wonderful writer. She delves into these past and forgotten recipes with the spirit of an adventurer and a sleuth, and while writing about food, she is always secretly writing about something else—a love of life, eternal values, industry, thrift, friendship, the unknown. Her books—written with a charmingly loose confidence and care—feel timeless.

—Sheila Heti, author of Pure Colour

"I treasure Something Old, Something New for the writing, which is as suave and fun to read as M. F. K. Fisher. Adler is the best kind of kitchen companion, someone whose warm and witty voice I want to carry with me as I cook."

—Bee Wilson, author of Consider the Fork

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The Everlasting Meal Cookbook, by Tamar Adler, illustrated by Caitlin Winner, Scribner

To Louis and Peter, and for savers of short string

A man was cleaning the attic of an old home in New England and he found a box which was full of tiny pieces of string. On the lid of the box there was an inscription in an old hand: String too short to be saved.

—Donald Hall, String Too Short to Be Saved

INTRODUCTION

This book contains most of what I know about cooking, spread among recipes for making much with odds and ends.

I feel about leftovers as I do about empty restaurants and unkempt gardens. I love them because they are unloved. I know this isn’t a universal sentiment. But I imagine that other people also look at the dried out slice of bread whose companion tasted so good this morning, or at the end of a pot of soup or rice and wish they could love them, and believe that they could, if any could taste as good again. That is what I fantasized about while I wrote this book.

This is a leftovers encyclopedia, organized by leftover ingredient. A friend suggested I call it How to Cook Everything… Again, because that is the information it contains. The vegetable chapter has hundreds of ideas for leftover vegetables and their stems and leaves. The fruit chapter has recipes for overripe and underripe fruit and its peels and pits. The beans and rice chapter is what to make of pots of beans and rice. And so on. My definitions are broad, including foods that are not strictly leftover. The writer Richard Olney, half of whose recipes in Simple French Food rely on stale bread, wrote that the wild things of nature were the economic ally of leftovers. This is sound. Like leftovers, foraged foods are free. I’ve included edible weeds and mushrooms where I knew what to do with them.

I’ve left entries in the terms that come first to my mind. A recipe using leftover mashed potatoes will be found under Mashed potatoes rather than Potatoes, mashed. Leftover candied yams are listed as such. In the case of eggs–where I somewhat religiously consider the egg itself before how it assembles itself in the pot or pan, I list Eggs, poached and Eggs, scrambled. When an ingredient or dish entered my life in a language other than English, I used its native language.

There is a paradox in writing recipes for this style of cooking. To provide directions for turning leftover mashed potatoes into crisp, fried cakes, I had to posit an amount of leftover mashed potatoes. How else to succinctly say how much flour to add and how much fat to fry them in? But the amount of leftover mashed potatoes you need is the amount you have. This is true in general and certainly for every recipe in this book. It is one of the inalienable rewards of treating old and leftover food as food, and you must claim it. I’ve included a logical if arbitrary amount of mashed potatoes (and so on) throughout. You can read and note the ratios in the recipes and about how much flour you need for what is in your bowl, and how much fat, and how many cakes it will make, and make decisions accordingly.

All cooking really requires is perception, practice, and patience. (This alliteration is galling but so were the synonyms.) Most other inputs are distractions. The chef Edna Lewis used to say that she listened to know when a cake was done. I’ve never heard a cake finishing, but I listen for eggs clattering around in a pot, and water burning off sauteing greens when they go from a light hiccup to a hard fry. These sounds are as good as a timer going off, and they are better for learning. This is even truer of smell. We have intricate noses, evolved over millions of years to ensure our survival. We smell some things better than bloodhounds do. We receive little reassurance that we bloodhounds can trust our senses to say food has gone bad. This is in part due to the preeminence in what exists of a collective American consciousness of expiration dates—which are not in fact expiration dates. (Nor are sell-by dates or best-by dates.) Most of the time, we can trust our senses. Our meticulous olfactory instruments are also at work when water boils and greens begin to fry. I’ve used standard time estimates in most of these recipes, in addition to saying what you should listen and smell for, so you know how long it will be until dinner is ready. Please let your observations remain the arbiter. Only you know if a thing is done or good. And you know it through your eyes and ears and nose and mouth.

I yearn to repeat on every page that ½ tsp of salt is a good starting point for seasoning anything but the water in a boiling pot–which demands a small handful. And to measure the ½ tsp into your hand so it eventually becomes your personal measuring device. I want to counsel you that frying–which I love–is not for the faint of heart. It hurts, even if you do it perfectly. Little beads of oil spring up and burn your forearms, not to mention what they do to your stovetop. But your skin and stovetop are fast to recover, and you’re not doing anything wrong even if it is a little painful and a little messy. The way you are doing it is the one you’ll learn from. If I were standing beside you, I would tell you to change nothing, but how close your hand is to the oil (it should be closer) and how much you’re worrying. I’ve tried to include this sort of advice throughout. But sometimes I simply say to add ½ tsp of salt. And sometimes I just instruct you to fry.

In my attempt to be comprehensive, I have often been eccentric–how many suggestions does one really need for leftover aillade? There is no excuse for there being three entries for certain ingredients and one–or none–for others. I grew up with a Middle Eastern father. We ate pita and hummus and pickles. I cooked at Chez Panisse, where the food was unpretentious and garlicky. These facts have imprinted on my repertoire and my preferences. They have been inescapable in the selection of these entries.

If you’ve never felt tenderly toward leftovers, it may still be of interest that thousands of culinary delicacies rely on using what seems useless. They include ribollita and French onion soup, bouillabaisse, minestrone, arancini, rice pudding, fried rice, cider vinegar, and dumplings and bone broth and, and, and. All of those and more are products of the ancient happy marriage of economy and pleasure. That so much good food is born of this abiding coupling is simply not said often enough. But it is true. I find that truth not only practical but holy.

It is mostly women who have devised the methods in these recipes: more mothers than childless, more poor than rich. Where I remember how I first read of a recipe or tasted a dish, I’ve included a credit. Where there is no credit, this note should serve to emphasize that everything comes from somewhere. I only claim participation in the history of feeding.

This book is my best attempt at a compendium of what to do with what you have–with your string too short to be saved. So once again, I boldly suggest that by having saved what’s left of an earlier meal, you are already cooking another one. And I offer you these pages as a companion while you continue on from where you are.

THINGS YOU NEED TO COOK AN EVERLASTING MEAL

FAT: Fat is a great diplomat, skilled at smoothing transitions from one day to the next. I use olive oil promiscuously for all cooking but frying, and for general drizzling. I use grapeseed or peanut oil for frying. I use sesame oil where recipes call for it, because it is too fervently nutty to be replicated, though I’ve substituted the oil that rises to the top of a jar of tahini or peanut butter. Vegetable oil is neutral enough for everything. I love butter and ghee, and I cook with both, but I let myself run out of ghee first, because it is clarified butter and can be made by very slowly melting butter then straining out the milk solids.

SALT: I mostly use kosher salt, but I can adjust. After a few mishaps—oversalted pasta and oversalted eggs and a brief mea culpa—I recalibrate my pinches to whatever kind is around. Sea salt is also good. Iodized is fine if that’s what you have. I use flaky salt for sprinkling over at the end. It contributes specialness to simple things, which makes it worth the fuss.

ACID: A sprinkle of acid often all it takes to brighten up what dimmed overnight. I like plain distilled white vinegar, red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, and rice vinegar and use them all with little differentiation. I go through phases of buying lemons and limes and phases of not buying them. During the not phases I use one of the vinegars above, and we survive, even thrive.

HERBS OR CRUNCHY THINGS: Parsley, cilantro, mint, toasted bread crumbs, toasted nuts, fried shallots, or any other green leaf or bit of toasted seed cheers up anything leftover or plain via a combination of distraction and magnetism.

SPICE: Chile flakes, pickled chiles, chili sauce, garlic-chili sauce, chili crisp, kosho, and the other piquant amendments on which nature and culture have conspired, are indispensable to remaking and transforming odds and ends.

AN ALLIUM: This can be a clove of garlic or a few scallions or half a shallot or onion or leek. They all supply some of the same round rich sweetness.

PICKLES: Olives, capers, anchovies, kimchi, pickles, and all other salty, preserved things, are as reliable as parsley and bread crumbs and nuts for transforming simple or leftover food.

COOKING TOOLS: It is good to have a sharp chef’s knife and a serrated knife, to keep from blunting your sharp one on bread. I always need at least one large pot, big enough to boil two pounds of pasta, with a lid. A large heavy-bottomed saucepan is vital for cooking greens and other vegetables that start voluminous then shrink. At least one 12-inch skillet, nonstick or cast iron, makes frittatas easier. A small pot keeps you from having to heat up a big one when it’s just you. I turn regularly to one to two sheet pans or cookie sheets, a big colander, a handheld sieve for scooping things out of the boiling pot, a mortar and pestle, a peeler, a whisk, tongs, wooden spoons, plus various metals ones that have outlived some of the wooden ones. I have a blender and a food processor. If I had to choose, I would probably choose the food processor, but no one has asked me to.

A VERY BRIEF MANIFESTO TO COVER ANYTHING I’VE LEFT OUT: If a kitchen tool helps, and you love it, keep and it and use it until it is worn out. If you wonder whether you need a certain knife or pot or anything else that vows to change your cooking and your life, consider restraint. A sharp knife, regardless of its size, will cut almost anything. Even the thinnest tin pot will boil and braise and fry. Each new thing we buy to help us cook will need to go somewhere when we are done with it. So the best counsel I have is to go about your cooking, only adding things if there’s no more creative way of resolving the issue.

USEFUL CONVERSIONS

There are 3 TEASPOONS in 1 TABLESPOON

There are 16 TABLESPOONS in 1 CUP

1 LIME produces about 1 ½ TABLESPOONS JUICE

1 LEMON produces about 3 TABLESPOONS JUICE

1 LEMON produces about 1 TABLESPOON GRATED ZEST

1 LIME produces about 2 TEASPOONS GRATED ZEST

1 ORANGE produces 2–3 TABLESPOONS GRATED ZEST

1 INCH OF FRESH GINGER produces about 1 TABLESPOON CHOPPED

1 MEDIUM CLOVE GARLIC is BETWEEN 1 HEAPING TEASPOON AND 1 TABLESPOON, and the range is fine

1 MEDIUM ONION (chopped) is about 1 CUP

1 MEDIUM FENNEL BULB (chopped) is 1 ½–2 CUPS, and the range is fine

1 MEDIUM CARROT (chopped) is about ½ CUP

1 STALK CELERY produces about ½ CUP SLICED and ⅓ CUP CHOPPED

1 POUND GROUND MEAT is about 2 CUPS RAW and 1 ½ CUPS COOKED

1 CUP COOKED MEAT (chopped) is a little over 10 ½ OUNCES

1 CUP ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR weighs about 120 GRAMS

1 CUP SUGAR weighs about 200 GRAMS

1 CUP BUTTER weighs about 227 GRAMS

1 CUP SOURDOUGH STARTER discard weighs about 226 GRAMS

VEGETABLE OIL can be replaced by BUTTER at a 1:1 RATIO in baking

HOW TO EAT WELL

Vegetables

Who wants to eat a good supper should eat a weed of every kind.

—A Tuscan saying, via Patience Gray

A vegetable that has basked in hot heat with good fat is more useful to the home cook than one left raw. This is as true of the most baroque broccoli Romanesco as it is of the lowliest butternut. Once vegetables are cooked, there can be an herby roasted vegetable salad one day, a soup another, a fried rice dish a third, and so on, with only minimal adjustments in between.

Two rewarding ways to turn vegetables from raw to cooked are: 1) Roast them: Set the oven to 400°F. Trim off anything wilted. Wash what’s left, cut it into 1- to 2-inch pieces of about equal volume, place them in a bowl, drizzle them heavily with olive oil and sprinkle liberally with salt, then tip them onto a sheet pan, careful to leave a little breathing room among and between. Add a drizzle of water, a whole clove of garlic and/or a branch of rosemary, if you have, and roast them until they are browned and caramelized. Or 2) Boil them: Set a large pot of water on the stove. Bring it to a boil, then add salt by hand, tasting it by tapping the surface with the tip of your finger or by dipping in a shallow spoon, as you go. If you taste water, add more salt. Continue until it approaches the saltiness of a pleasantly salted sea. When it does, you have a seasoned medium for cooking, and you can begin, boiling vegetables in batches by type, checking for the doneness of each batch with a sharp knife and a taste, removing with a handheld sieve or tongs to a waiting tray, and drizzling with olive oil. In most cases, following one of those directions in advance of a vegetable aging—or as soon as possible after aging has begun—will save a vegetable and a trip to the store. And it will furnish the category of vegetables-ready-to-be-used.

To make the most of vegetables-ready-to-be-used, and therefore all leftover vegetables, it helps to acquaint yourself with the most pleasurable temperature for eating anything: room temperature. When you are cold, there’s nothing as good as hot broth, and when you’re hot, only ice water provides real relief. But when it’s plain daily hunger you’re addressing, the ambient temperature of a room is most flattering to ingredients. Treat any you’ve stored away like wine or cheese, letting them sit out and breathe a bit, so their oils and fibers slacken on their own. This will let you taste the flavors you took the care to store, rather than the effects of storage.

Cooking ingredients prolongs their lives, which is why the prescription for a fading vegetable is the same as for a fresh one: Cook it. If a vegetable is raw but seems left over because it has begun to yellow and droop, it has already begun to be cooked by time. Now pick up where entropy left off. Pare off anything gray or unnerving. Slice what’s left across its grain and cook it thoroughly, to a lovely Italian consistency. Or add it to cooking minestrone or to a stew, where droopiness is to be expected.

Vegetables that are left over because they were sliced yesterday are most helped by being added to. Slice another zucchini to add to the sliced half that wasn’t grilled, giving you enough to roast for dinner. This works especially well when you pack your own lunch for work. If you have a little sliced tomato left, slice some mozzarella, store the two together in a lunch container, and you’ll have Caprese at your desk tomorrow.

As with weeds like dandelion and wild sorrel and nettles, whose edibility resides in the eye of their beholder, vegetables’ stems and peels and leaves are useful ingredients when allowed to be. Tough ribs and stems must be thinly sliced across, but then can be cooked along with everything else, or saved and used as cooking greens. Peels can be fried. Leafy tops do a miraculous imitation of herbs. You do not have to eat weeds—though they merit sampling. But seeing vegetables’ stems and peels and leaves and tired vegetables and leftover vegetables for what they are rather than what they are not paves the way more reliably for a good supper than would a narrower perspective.

Here are some fundamental vegetable techniques:

TO PREPARE GARLIC

Cut each clove in half and peel it. If you have time, remove the green germ in the middle to avoid bitterness. Slice off the root end, and proceed.

MIREPOIX

Finely chop onion, carrot, celery or fennel in a ratio of 2:1:1. For example: 1 cup onion, ½ cup each of the other two. Cook in olive oil over medium-low heat, salting immediately, until tender. Freezes well, raw or cooked.

PUERTO RICAN SOFRITO

2 medium onions (chopped), 1 cup (16–20) peeled cloves garlic, 3 cups chopped mostly sweet or hot sweet peppers, 3–4 whole tomatoes (fresh or canned), 1 bunch cilantro (stems and leaves).

In a food processor, combine the onions and garlic and pulse. Add the peppers, tomatoes, and cilantro and puree to fairly smooth. Cook in olive oil over medium-low heat, salting immediately, until tender. Freezes well, raw or cooked.

FRIED SHALLOTS

4–5 shallots, neutral oil (peanut, grapeseed, or vegetable).

Thinly slice the shallots into rounds. In a heavy-bottomed pot or saucepan, combine the shallots and enough oil to cover them by about 1 inch. Place the pot over high heat and slowly bring the oil to a bubble. Cook, stirring constantly, until they are just golden, about 10 min. Strain, reserving the oil (which you can now label shallot oil and use to make things extra delicious and shallot-y) and drain on a paper towel until cool.

And here are adaptable vegetable recipes:

ALMOST ANY VEGETABLE PASTA

Salt, 1 head broccoli (or cauliflower, broccoli Romanesco, cabbage, peas, or any other vegetable you want to boil), olive oil, 1 lb short pasta (orecchiette or penne), Parmesan cheese.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt it to taste like pleasant seawater. Cut the core and stem from the broccoli (or so on) and slice very finely and include, or reserve for another use. Cut the remainder into florets or pieces, 2–3 inches each. Boil in batches until perfectly tender and easily pierced by a sharp knife. Retrieve with a sieve and set in a big bowl. Drizzle heavily with olive oil. Add the pasta to the same pot and cook it. Remove it directly to the bowl of vegetables, drizzle with more olive oil, shower heavily with Parmesan, mix well, taste, adjust, and eat.

This can be made with roasted vegetables rather than boiled. You will be deprived of the satisfaction of using a single pot of water to make a full meal, but you will still have a good dinner. Cut your vegetable into small florets or other uniform pieces, drizzle heavily with olive oil, salt amply, add a little water, and then roast at 400°F until toasty and tender and caramelized. Mix with the pasta, top with Parmesan, toasted bread crumbs, and parsley, and eat.

ANY VEGETABLE MASH

3 tbsp butter, 1 clove garlic (chopped or sliced), ⅛ tsp salt plus to taste, ½–1 tsp white wine (optional), 2 cups leftover cooked vegetables (squash, root vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower), ¼ cup heavy cream. Optional seasoning: a scrape of lemon zest, cinnamon, or nutmeg, a few pounded green coriander seeds.

Heat a small pot. Add the butter, then the garlic and salt, and cook until it softens, 30 sec–1 min, adding a sprinkle of water if it threatens to brown. Add wine (if using), then the vegetables and cream and simmer for 5 min. Add any optional seasonings that seem enticing. Puree or smash to smooth. Taste for salt and adjust. Eat as you would mashed potatoes.

ANY VEGETABLE MINESTRA

3 tbsp butter or olive oil plus for serving, ½ onion (sliced or chopped), 1 clove garlic, ½ tsp salt plus to taste, 2–3 sprigs thyme or rosemary, 2 cups combined chopped vegetables (cooked or raw or a combination. Or some peels and some stems and cores—anything works, as long as it is chopped neatly), 4 cups any cooking liquid or a combination (left from vegetable cooking, bean cooking, farro cooking, or Savory Stock/Broth

), 1 cup cooked starches (optional; beans, rice, small pasta), and toppings (optional; olive tapenade, parsley oil, or other herb oil).

Heat a soup pot. Add the butter or olive oil, onion, garlic, and salt and cook until tender, 5–10 min, then add the herbs, vegetables, and liquid. Simmer for 15–20 min, add any cooked starches, and simmer for 5 min. Taste for salt and adjust. Eat drizzled copiously with olive oil and any other toppings.

ANY VEGETABLE POTAGE

3 tbsp butter or olive oil plus for serving, ½ onion (sliced or chopped), 1 clove garlic, ½ tsp salt plus to taste, 1 sprig thyme or rosemary or other herb, leftover vegetables (squash, root vegetables, sweet potatoes, leeks, broccoli, cauliflower), an equal quantity water or stock.

Heat a soup pot. Add the butter or olive oil, onion, garlic, and salt and cook until tender, 5–10 min, then add the herbs, vegetables, and liquid. Simmer for 15–20 min and puree in batches, blending more solids than liquid, because it’s easier to add liquid than to remove it. Combine in a pot before eating. Taste and add leftover liquid if you want. Taste for salt and adjust. Good with crisp croutons on top.

ANY VEGETABLE SABZI

2–3 tbsp neutral oil (peanut, grapeseed, or olive) or ghee, ½ tsp cumin seeds, ½ tbsp chopped garlic, ½ tbsp minced fresh ginger, 1 onion (finely chopped), 1 fresh green chile (chopped), ½ tsp salt plus to taste, ¼ tsp ground turmeric, 1 tsp garam masala, ½ tsp ground coriander, ½–1 tsp ground chile powder, a scrape of hing (asafoetida), 3 cups leftover cooked vegetables (squash, root vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, eggplant, green beans) in bite-size pieces, 1 canned or fresh tomato (chopped), 1 tsp kasuri methi (fenugreek leaves), 2 tbsp chopped cilantro, rice, or flatbread for serving.

Heat a large, heavy-bottomed sauté pan. Add the oil or ghee, then cumin seeds. Once they’ve sizzled and become aromatic, add the garlic and ginger, then the onion, green chile, and salt. Sauté until the onion begins to soften, about 2 min. Add the turmeric, garam masala, coriander, chile powder, and hing. Add the cooked vegetables, then the tomato and kasuri methi and cook until the tomato has broken down, about 5 min, adding a bit of water or oil if needed. Taste for salt and adjust. Add the cilantro, and eat with hot rice or warm flat bread.

ANY VEGETABLE SALAD

2 cups leftover cooked chopped vegetables (squash, root vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower), ¼ cup almonds (chopped), ¼ onion of any color or a shallot (sliced lengthwise into very thin half-moons), ½ tsp salt plus to taste, 1 tbsp vinegar or more to taste, ½ tsp Dijon mustard, 2 tbsp olive oil or to taste, ¼ cup roughly chopped parsley or mint, ¼ cup chopped greens (optional; turnip greens, carrot tops, radish tops, or mustard greens), a squeeze of lemon.

Heat the oven to 400°F. Allow the vegetables to come to room temperature. Set the almonds on a sheet pan and lightly toast in the oven, 5–10 min. Remove from the pan. In a big bowl, combine the onion or shallot, salt, vinegar, and mustard and let sit for 10 min. Mix well. Add the vegetables, olive oil, then almonds and mix well. Add the herbs and greens (if using). Taste for salt and adjust. Add a squeeze of lemon juice before eating.

ANY VEGETABLE CURRY

3 tbsp neutral oil (peanut, grapeseed, or olive), ½ onion (medium-diced), ½ tsp salt plus to taste, ½ tsp ground spices (roughly equal parts ground turmeric, ground cardamom, and ground cumin), 1 fresh chile (minced) or ½ tsp chile flakes, ½ cup cooked chickpeas or black-eyed peas, ½–1 (14-oz) can coconut milk, 1 cup other liquid (stock, vegetable cooking liquid, bean broth, farro liquid, water), 2–3 pieces lemon or lime peel (removed with a peeler), 1 tsp fish sauce (optional), 2 cups leftover cooked vegetables, ½ cup toasted peanuts (chopped), fresh lemon or lime juice, fresh herb leaves (mint, basil, or cilantro), freshly cooked rice for serving.

Heat a large, heavy-bottomed sauté pan. Add the oil, onion, and salt and cook until tender, 5–10 min. Add the spices and chile. Once the spices are fragrant, add the chickpeas or black-eyed peas, coconut milk, liquid, and citrus peel. Cook, stirring occasionally, at just below a simmer for about 30 min. Add the fish sauce (if using). Add the vegetables and peanuts and cook for 15 min over low heat. Taste for salt and spiciness and adjust. Add lemon or lime juice to taste. Top with herbs and eat with hot rice.

ANY VEGETABLE THAI-STYLE CURRY

Two (14-oz) cans coconut milk (3–4 cups), 3 tbsp red or green Thai curry paste, 3–6 cups combined leftover vegetables (cooked or raw, cut into 1- to 2-inch pieces), 1–2 chiles (optional; chopped), 6–7 makrut lime leaves, ¼ cup fish sauce, a handful of Thai basil and/or cilantro (optional), freshly cooked rice for serving.

Heat a large, heavy-bottomed sauté pan, then add ¼ cup of the coconut milk and the curry paste and stir to dissolve the curry paste, 1–2 min. Add the remaining coconut milk and 1 ½ cups water, stir to combine, then add all of the vegetables and the chiles (if using). Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until all the vegetables are nearly tender, about 10 min. If you’re using sturdier vegetables and they take longer, add a little pour of water if needed to keep everything bubbling along. Add the lime leaves and continue cooking until the vegetables are completely tender, another 5–7 min. Add the fish sauce and simmer for 1 min or so, then taste and adjust if needed. Add the fresh herbs (if using) and eat with hot rice.

BY-MISTAKE-UNDERCOOKED WINTER VEGETABLE SALAD

2 tbsp olive oil, 1 crisp green or red apple (cut into ½-inch cubes), 2 shallots or ¼ red onion (very thinly sliced), ½ cup ½-inch-diced fennel, 1 cup diced undercooked winter vegetable (squash, turnip, carrot, or parsnip), 1 ½ tbsp red or white wine vinegar, ¼ tsp salt plus to taste, ½ tsp walnut or olive oil, 4 cups torn escarole or very finely sliced stemmed kale.

Heat a pan over medium heat. Add the olive oil, then add the apple, shallots or onion, and fennel and cook until they’ve begun to get tender, about 5 min. Add the undercooked vegetable, stir to combine, increase the heat to medium-high, add the vinegar and salt, and cook for another 30 sec to 1 min. Remove from the heat. Add the walnut or olive oil, stir through, taste for salt and adjust. Arrange the greens on a plate and tip the vegetables onto it, piling a little as you do.

HERB TEA

Bring water to a boil, pour it over clean herbs, still on the stem, let sit for 5 min, and drink, adding honey or sugar if you like.

ACORN SQUASH, COOKED

It is enduringly frustrating to have the first entry in a book refer you elsewhere. It is the fault of squash, which is nearly universally replaceable with other squash, regardless of the type. This fact is suboptimal from a searching perspective but optimal from a culinary one: Leftovers of cooked squashes can be thanked for their endurance and mutability, and then used in the Any Vegetable Mash

, Any Vegetable Minestra

, Any Vegetable Potage

, Any Vegetable Sabzi

, Any Vegetable Salad

, Any Vegetable Curry

, or Any Vegetable Thai-Style Curry

. Or, scoop leftover acorn squash out of its shell into a mixing bowl, smash it with a bit of salt and olive oil, and spread it, cold, on toasted bread rubbed with a garlic clove, with olive oil and grated Parmesan and black pepper adorning it all. If cold smashed squash doesn’t appeal, warm it in a little pot with a sprinkle of water, stirring so it doesn’t burn, and then proceed. Leftover acorn squash is also a warming addition to Risotto

. Or, it can be scooped, roughly cubed, and warmed up with lunchtime beans into something not nameable but filling and good.

ACORN SQUASH PEEL

What to do with a squash peel depends on the squash. Acorn squash peels are hard, and find their way to my compost bucket. Same with butternut. Honeynut and delicata peels can be eaten along with their flesh. Whether you eat kabocha peel is a personal choice. Summer squash peels should mostly be eaten with their flesh, except for cucuzza, which grows as big as a French horn and whose skin is immutably tough.

ALFALFA SPROUTS, WILTED

TOFU SMASH (5 min)

½ block extra-firm tofu, 1 scallion (minced), ¼ cup chopped celery, 1 tbsp mayonnaise, 1 tsp salt plus to taste, lots of freshly ground black pepper, a small handful of alfalfa sprouts.

In a bowl, smash the tofu with a fork to a fine crumble. Add the scallion, celery, mayonnaise, salt, and black pepper. Mix well. Add the sprouts and mix to combine. Taste for salt and adjust. Good on its own or on lettuce leaves or in a sandwich.

GARDEN EGG TACO (5–10 min)

1 boiled egg, 1–2 tbsp olive oil, a small handful of alfalfa sprouts, salt, feshly ground black pepper, a warmed tortilla, hot sauce (optional).

In a bowl, smash the egg with a fork into uneven pieces. Heat a small pan. Add the oil, then the egg, sprouts, a sprinkle of salt, and a good deal of black pepper. Stir to warm and fry, about 30 sec. Tip the contents of the pan directly onto the tortilla. Add hot sauce if you want!

ALOO GOBI

ALOO GOBI SOUP (15–20 min)

1 tbsp ghee or butter or coconut oil, 1 tsp amchur powder or grated zest of 1 lime, 1 tsp ground turmeric, 1 can coconut milk, 1 cup aloo gobi, 1 ¼ tsp salt plus to taste. Optional additions: cooked rice, cilantro, and/or spinach, and moong dal.

Heat a small pot. Add the ghee. Add amchur (but not lime zest, if you are using) and turmeric and let sizzle 20 sec or so. Add the coconut milk, aloo gobi, 1 cup water, the salt, and lime zest (if using) and simmer for 15 min. Taste for salt and adjust. Eat as is, or puree to a creamy soup.

A scoop of cooked rice is also good stirred in at the end, as is a handful of chopped cilantro, or a handful of fresh spinach or all three. For an even heartier version, add a little cooked moong dal. (Adapted from Spice Chronicles website)

ALOO GOBI SAMOSAS (1 ½ hr)

Samosa Dough

, salt, 1 cup aloo gobi, peanut or grapeseed oil for frying.

Make the samosa dough, then set aside to rest for 30–40 min. Add salt to taste to the leftover aloo gobi. It should be highly seasoned. Knead the dough. Divide it into 8 pieces, covering the dough you’re not using. Roll each ball into an oval then divide it in half horizontally. Holding a piece in your hand, apply water to the straight edge, then form into a cone. Fill with about 1 tbsp filling. Wet the rim, then pinch to seal. Continue with the remaining dough, keeping the finished samosas covered as you work. In a small, deep pot, heat 3–4 inches of oil to 325°F. Fry 2–3 samosas at a time for 10–12 min over low heat, then increase the heat slightly and continue cooking until crisp and golden, another 5 min. Good with any chutney. (Adapted from Cook with Manali website)

ALOO GOBI GRILLED CHEESE (15 min)

Softened butter, 2 slices sandwich bread, ¼ cup aloo gobi, thinly sliced or grated cheddar cheese, chopped cilantro, sauerkraut (or kimchi or curtido), cilantro chutney (optional).

Butter the bread on both sides. Spread with the aloo gobi, smashing it as you do. Top with cheddar, then the remaining ingredients. Cook as you do a grilled cheese, griddling each side until golden brown and flipping, cooking until the cheese has melted.

AMARANTH

Amaranth is one of the many wild greens that can be discarded as a weed or cooked in a hot pan with garlic and olive oil for a spinach stand-in. If you have it growing in your yard, wash it well and cook it as in Greens

.

ANISE HYSSOP, WILTED

Anise hyssop, even wilted, makes good Herb Tea

.

ARTICHOKES, COOKED

ARTICHOKES AND BEANS WITH AIOLI (20 min)

1 or 2 artichokes, 1-2 cups cooked beans with their cooking liquid, 1 sprig rosemary or savory, salt, olive oil to taste, Aioli

.

If they are baby artichokes, cut them into wedges. If they are big, remove the leaves and eat them as you putter, a cook’s treat. Scoop out the hairy choke with a fork or a grapefruit spoon (my mother’s trick) and cut the heart and stem into wedges or chunks. In a small pot, combine the artichokes with the beans, rosemary, and a little bean cooking liquid and bring to a simmer. Taste for salt and adjust. Eat warm, heavily dolloped with aioli.

ARTICHOKE LIQUID FROM BRAISING ARTICHOKES

IMPROVED POTATOES (10–20 min)

Potatoes, artichoke braising liquid, salt, olive oil plus for drizzling.

If you steamed or fried artichokes, this doesn’t apply, and your artichoke alone must suffice. But if you went through the nail-stinging ordeal of trimming and turning and choking your artichokes, you will have braised them. Then, you will have artichoke braising liquid, which has been enriched by the salt, olive oil, herbs, and garlic you added. It is also, more importantly, a potent concentrate of the deep metallic thrill of artichoke. Cut potatoes of any kind, from Idaho to Magic Molly, into large chunks of uniform size and put them into a pot. Add the artichoke braising liquid. If you don’t have enough to cover them, add water to make up the difference. Taste the liquid to make sure it tastes like a broth of which you would gladly take another sip, and add salt or water or a drizzle of olive oil as needed. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are completely tender. These are perfect.

ARTICHOKES, CANNED

AN ODDLY GOOD SCRAMBLE (5–10 min)

2–3 eggs (whisked), ¼ tsp salt plus to taste, 2 tbsp butter or oil, 3 canned artichoke hearts (rinsed and wedged), a pinch of chopped parsley or Herbes de Provence, freshly ground black pepper.

In a bowl, whisk the eggs and salt. Heat a small nonstick or regular frying pan, add half the butter or oil, then add the artichoke wedges. Cook over medium heat until just beginning to brown, then turn and brown their second sides. Remove to a bowl and sprinkle with herbs. Return the pan to the heat. Add the remaining fat, then the eggs, then artichokes, and scramble softly, adding black pepper at the end.

ARUGULA, WILTED

Cull any leaves that have liquified, then thinly slice what’s left. Treat this as parsley, sprinkling it over pasta or stirring it into a sauce or a cooking vegetable or pot of beans. Or combine whatever amount you have with an equal quantity of chopped toasted nuts and sprinkle it over cooked eggs, or grilled or poached meat or fish, or beans or pasta.

Or use it instead of half the basil in Basil Pesto

for a pesto with a bitter edge. If you find the edge unpleasantly bitter, next time use less arugula and more basil or parsley.

See also Greens

.

ASPARAGUS, COOKED

Cooked asparagus is delicious quickly cut up and eaten on hot rice, or chopped more finely and stirred into risotto at the end of its cooking. Asparagus is also good in Fried Rice

, in Any Vegetable Potage

, Almost Any Vegetable Pasta

, Any Vegetable Minestra

, or instead of Swiss chard stems in Swiss Chard Stem Gratin

. Or it can be used instead of asparagus bottoms in Simplest Asparagus Soup

, Asparagus Stock

, or Asparagus-and-Fill-in-the-Grains

.

ASPARAGUS BOTTOMS

SIMPLEST ASPARAGUS SOUP (25 min)

Asparagus bottoms from 1 bunch, 2 cups strong chicken stock (achieved by boiling weak chicken stock for 30 min), salt, 1 tbsp butter.

Cut off only the most impossibly hard white bottoms of the asparagus. In a pot, combine the reamining not-as-tough bottoms with the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cook until the asparagus is totally tender, 15–20 min. Remove from the heat, taste for salt, and adjust. Add the butter, blend in a blender until completely smooth and frothy, even if it takes a few min. Pour it through a sieve if it’s not entirely smooth. Eat at any temperature.

ASPARAGUS STOCK (20 min)

The subtle flavor of asparagus stock makes a worthy contribution if you plan on making asparagus risotto or asparagus soup. In a medium pot, combine the bottoms from 1 bunch of asparagus with 3–4 cups water to cover. Add 1–2 onion skins, a sprig of thyme, and a few peppercorns. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cook 20 min, and strain. When you begin your next asparagus recipe, use asparagus stock.

ASPARAGUS-AND-FILL-IN-THE-GRAINS (40 min)

Asparagus bottoms from 1 bunch, 1–2 Parmesan or Pecorino Romano rinds, 1 bay leaf, salt, 1 cup grain (farro, barley, rice, etc.), olive oil, lemon juice. Optional additions: leftover cooked greens, leftover cooked beans, chopped fresh basil and/or spinach.

Cut off only the most impossibly hard white bottoms of the asparagus. Slice the remaining not-as-tough bottoms into thin rounds. In a pot, combine them with the cheese rinds, bay leaf, and the right amount of water for your chosen grain and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cook until the asparagus is totally tender, 10–15 min. Remove the cheese rinds and bay leaf. Pour into a measuring cup and add any additional liquid needed. Taste for salt and adjust. Return the pot to the stove, add the grains and asparagus bottoms in liquid, and cook according to the grain’s directions. When cooked, stir in any add-ins, then cover and let sit for 10 min. Drizzle with olive oil, add a few drops of lemon juice, and eat.

AVOCADO, OVERRIPE

A version of a wonderful Hanoian breakfast smoothie can be reasonably approximated with avocado that’s full of stringy fibers and too ripe to be used for anything else.

SORT OF SINH TO BO/VIETNAMESE BREAKFAST SMOOTHIE (5 min)

¼–½ avocado (only the darkest brown bits removed), 1 cup ice cubes or crushed ice, ⅓ cup sweetened condensed milk, whole milk (optional).

In a blender, combine all the ingredients and blend to smooth. If it’s too thick for your taste, add some milk and blend again. This is one of the world’s perfect breakfasts.

AVOCADO PITS AND PEELS

DUSTY ROSE CLOTH OR EASTER EGG DYE (2 days, but mostly waiting)

Clean the pits and peels and store them in an airtight container until you have 2–3 avocados’ worth. Fill a pot with several quarts of water. Add the pits and peels to the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer until the water is dark maroon, 30–40 min. To dye clothing, dampen any once-white linen or cotton. Add to the pot and stir with a long spoon. Let sit on very low heat